Here’s How Full Hospitals In Baltimore County Are

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — Even as vaccines begin rolling out to health care workers and offer a powerful tool to fight the pandemic, coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations continue to hit record highs across the U.S.

The latest hospitalization data shows that at least 100,000 Americans have been in the hospital for coronavirus in December on average each day.

In Baltimore County, hospitalization data shows 181 people are hospitalized with the virus, down from a peak of 230 on Dec. 3. State health data from Dec. 31 shows there are 1,773 coronavirus patients in hospitals across Maryland.

In December, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began reporting hospital capacity data at the facility level, which several have used to determine the percentage of hospital beds occupied across the country.

The latest data, dated Dec. 17, shows how full hospital and ICU beds are in Baltimore County:

• Hospital beds occupied: 91 percent
• Hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients: 32 percent
• ICU beds occupied: 88 percent
• ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients: 40 percent

Maryland's hospital capacity is around 89 or 90 percent across the board, according to Bob Atlas, president/CEO of the Maryland Hospital Association.

"We think that with the Thanksgiving bulge having ... passed, that it will be awhile until we see another spike," Atlas told WBAL Tuesday. "The post-Christmas spike should appear sort of mid-January."

The HHS data compiled by the University of Minnesota was calculated at the facility level and averaged for each county.

Here’s how the model developed by the university measures the percentage of hospital and ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients.

• Percentage of hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients = Seven-day average of total adult and pediatric patients confirmed or suspected/seven day average of staffed inpatient beds
• Percentage of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients = Seven-day average of total adult ICU confirmed/seven-day average of staffed ICU adult beds